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Holy shit its like this author just experienced his very first 'cultural wave' phenomenon and then decided that literally every small detail around it was some

Holy shit its like this author just experienced his very first 'cultural wave' phenomenon and then decided that literally every small detail around it was some critical reason for its success. There are probably labs out there they have figured out how to send 'viral waves' out into the economy and profit from it, but thats all this is. Game of Thrones was an example, The Walking Dead was an example, Fortnite was an example, and Roblox was an example. Those examples highlight two very different viral culture waves. The kids playing games and the grown ups watching tv, but they highlight the exact same phenomenon. As for this game itself its probably exactly like Among Us and the million other little indie games like it that shot up in popularity 'out of know where' except it wasn't out of nowhere at all. It was a couple dozen HIGHLY interconnected Twitch streamers all getting into the same space and then 100's of follow along mid tier twitch streamers hoping to ride the new bandwagon to higher viewership.

larsiusprime 5y ago
Hey there author here! > It was a couple dozen HIGHLY interconnected Twitch streamers all getting into the same space and then 100's of follow along mid tier twitch streamers hoping to ride the new bandwagon to higher viewership. I have access to the traffic stats behind FNF and this is demonstrably false. There was a lot more to it. Twitch was one small part of this phenomenon. I'm happy to welcome critique but could you please be less dismissive and instead make a more substantive critique?
- stragio 5y ago
  I think your article is great, hope you are right and align with your worldviews. Is @Tocelot your Twitter account?
  - larsiusprime 5y ago
    No I'm @larsiusprime. @tocelot is the a16z partner I quote at the beginning, but I'm not associated with that or any other VC firm. I'm an independent game developer and consultant with a blog.
    - stragio 5y ago
      Cool, just started following you in case you release some blog.
- throwaway675309 5y ago
  Hey Larsius, is this game basically a reskinned version of the old school FFR Flash Flash Revolution game that was popular over a decade ago?
derefr 5y ago
> It was a couple dozen HIGHLY interconnected Twitch streamers all getting into the same space and then 100's of follow along mid tier twitch streamers hoping to ride the new bandwagon to higher viewership. I mean, until Twitch is no longer such a big thing, that sounds like you're describing a likely repeatable formula for success: make a game that will catch on amongst these couple-dozen Twitch influencers. And it seems like a good property for such a game to have, would be a really low barrier to entry, to entice them into trying it in the first place, when they don't see anyone else playing it. As such, I can see the validity in the argument in the article is making — and I'm not sure why you think it's a "small detail." It's not like that set of Twitch streamers has ever made a game go viral that didn't have this "pick-up-and-play-ability" in some way or another. The property is just created in different ways for different games.
- munificent 5y ago
  > a likely repeatable formula for success: make a game that will catch on amongst these couple-dozen Twitch influencers. Sure, but like half the world's game devs are all trying to do exactly that right now. Similar to the stock market, game development is an novelty-based ecosystem. That means that there is essentially no long-term repeatable formula for success. Any formula will eventually discovered by others, over-exploited, and players will lose interest and go elsewhere.
  - shuntress 5y ago
    The problem isn't the formula (good enough game, readily accessible, noticed by players.) The problem is that last step, "be noticed", is extremely hard and mostly based on luck/money. And this is 100% "long-term repeatable" if you can continually deliver "good enough" games after being noticed. The obvious example is Call of Duty.
  - derefr 5y ago
    If the set of Twitch influencers is relatively static, presumably you could just cater to the exact peculiarities of their tastes in games to the exclusion of the wider market, the way that some authors try to cater to the exact peculiarities of the tastes of a particular editor.
Marazan 5y ago
The post isn't about FNF, it's about the Flash Game eco system and what was lost and now slowly being refound. And a high quality "Fuck you Steve Jobs" as well. I'm here for any posts that says "Fuck you Steve Jobs"
jchw 5y ago
If your only critique of the article is why FNF got popular, then that seems like a really minor critique overall. But honestly, comparing it to Among Us makes me doubt you on this. First of all, simply pointing to Twitch streamers is giving them too much credit. Twitch streamers may be early to trends, but seldom do they start them alone. Secondly, Among Us is particularly good for streaming because it pushed a lot of streamers with pre-existing relationships to stream the game with eachother, and lead to interesting content for that reason alone. I will gladly agree that Twitch streamers may have helped boost Among Us out of its slump. I also agree that it helped FNF too. But you know what else helped Among Us and FNF? Millions of views on YouTube, Tiktok, fanart on Twitter/NG/elsewhere, mods across the entire Internet, etc. and where it’s fair to say that Twitch could’ve been the catalyst for Among Us, saying that it is the catalyst for FNF without further evidence seems patently unfair. Big platforms like TikTok and YouTube are more than capable of driving viral sensations that are bigger than the entire audiences of “a couple dozen highly interconnected Twitch streamers.” (For clarification I regularly watch a couple of the Twitch streamers you are likely grouping into this category so yes I do know how large their audiences are.)
- danShumway 5y ago
  > mods across the entire Internet I think Among Us's mod support is underrated for a multi-player game, and I think it did a lot to improve the game's longevity. I'm hesitant to make broad sweeping claims about the game, but I agree that looking purely at streamers is probably underselling its success, even though streamers did obviously play a big role in bringing it to more people's attention.
  - jchw 5y ago
    Agreed. I have only checked out a handful, but even just Town of Us and Crewlink completely transform the experience, not to mention countless neat aesthetic and other misc mods. (I remember a Korean user went fairly viral when they posted a full Sanrio-themed reskin of the game.) Having a game that can be modded is a real win/win. What’s so weird is it feels like this lesson should’ve already been learned. Several prominent franchises were born as mods to other games, and TF2 even went as far as simply making mods part of the actual game and compensating modders in the process... Yet it feels like a lot of this is left on the table in the walled garden world of gaming.
saturdaysaint 5y ago
A lot of this article (possibly the majority?) is actually spent explaining why Instant Games haven't taken over the world, despite some success stories. This is why he goes into some detail on Apple - if they can't go on iOS devices, there's a real ceiling on the trend. I really enjoyed this article, but it's a bit of a discursive brain dump, which is why I think a lot of the criticisms have essentially been misrepresentations of the actual article contents.

larsiusprime 5y ago

Hey there author here! > It was a couple dozen HIGHLY interconnected Twitch streamers all getting into the same space and then 100's of follow along mid tier twitch streamers hoping to ride the new bandwagon to higher viewership. I have access to the traffic stats behind FNF and this is demonstrably false. There was a lot more to it. Twitch was one small part of this phenomenon. I'm happy to welcome critique but could you please be less dismissive and instead make a more substantive critique?

stragio 5y ago
I think your article is great, hope you are right and align with your worldviews. Is @Tocelot your Twitter account?
- larsiusprime 5y ago
  No I'm @larsiusprime. @tocelot is the a16z partner I quote at the beginning, but I'm not associated with that or any other VC firm. I'm an independent game developer and consultant with a blog.
  - stragio 5y ago
    Cool, just started following you in case you release some blog.
throwaway675309 5y ago
Hey Larsius, is this game basically a reskinned version of the old school FFR Flash Flash Revolution game that was popular over a decade ago?

derefr 5y ago

> It was a couple dozen HIGHLY interconnected Twitch streamers all getting into the same space and then 100's of follow along mid tier twitch streamers hoping to ride the new bandwagon to higher viewership. I mean, until Twitch is no longer such a big thing, that sounds like you're describing a likely repeatable formula for success: make a game that will catch on amongst these couple-dozen Twitch influencers. And it seems like a good property for such a game to have, would be a really low barrier to entry, to entice them into trying it in the first place, when they don't see anyone else playing it. As such, I can see the validity in the argument in the article is making — and I'm not sure why you think it's a "small detail." It's not like that set of Twitch streamers has ever made a game go viral that didn't have this "pick-up-and-play-ability" in some way or another. The property is just created in different ways for different games.

munificent 5y ago
> a likely repeatable formula for success: make a game that will catch on amongst these couple-dozen Twitch influencers. Sure, but like half the world's game devs are all trying to do exactly that right now. Similar to the stock market, game development is an novelty-based ecosystem. That means that there is essentially no long-term repeatable formula for success. Any formula will eventually discovered by others, over-exploited, and players will lose interest and go elsewhere.
- shuntress 5y ago
  The problem isn't the formula (good enough game, readily accessible, noticed by players.) The problem is that last step, "be noticed", is extremely hard and mostly based on luck/money. And this is 100% "long-term repeatable" if you can continually deliver "good enough" games after being noticed. The obvious example is Call of Duty.
- derefr 5y ago
  If the set of Twitch influencers is relatively static, presumably you could just cater to the exact peculiarities of their tastes in games to the exclusion of the wider market, the way that some authors try to cater to the exact peculiarities of the tastes of a particular editor.

Marazan 5y ago

The post isn't about FNF, it's about the Flash Game eco system and what was lost and now slowly being refound. And a high quality "Fuck you Steve Jobs" as well. I'm here for any posts that says "Fuck you Steve Jobs"

jchw 5y ago

If your only critique of the article is why FNF got popular, then that seems like a really minor critique overall. But honestly, comparing it to Among Us makes me doubt you on this. First of all, simply pointing to Twitch streamers is giving them too much credit. Twitch streamers may be early to trends, but seldom do they start them alone. Secondly, Among Us is particularly good for streaming because it pushed a lot of streamers with pre-existing relationships to stream the game with eachother, and lead to interesting content for that reason alone. I will gladly agree that Twitch streamers may have helped boost Among Us out of its slump. I also agree that it helped FNF too. But you know what else helped Among Us and FNF? Millions of views on YouTube, Tiktok, fanart on Twitter/NG/elsewhere, mods across the entire Internet, etc. and where it’s fair to say that Twitch could’ve been the catalyst for Among Us, saying that it is the catalyst for FNF without further evidence seems patently unfair. Big platforms like TikTok and YouTube are more than capable of driving viral sensations that are bigger than the entire audiences of “a couple dozen highly interconnected Twitch streamers.” (For clarification I regularly watch a couple of the Twitch streamers you are likely grouping into this category so yes I do know how large their audiences are.)

danShumway 5y ago
> mods across the entire Internet I think Among Us's mod support is underrated for a multi-player game, and I think it did a lot to improve the game's longevity. I'm hesitant to make broad sweeping claims about the game, but I agree that looking purely at streamers is probably underselling its success, even though streamers did obviously play a big role in bringing it to more people's attention.
- jchw 5y ago
  Agreed. I have only checked out a handful, but even just Town of Us and Crewlink completely transform the experience, not to mention countless neat aesthetic and other misc mods. (I remember a Korean user went fairly viral when they posted a full Sanrio-themed reskin of the game.) Having a game that can be modded is a real win/win. What’s so weird is it feels like this lesson should’ve already been learned. Several prominent franchises were born as mods to other games, and TF2 even went as far as simply making mods part of the actual game and compensating modders in the process... Yet it feels like a lot of this is left on the table in the walled garden world of gaming.

saturdaysaint 5y ago

A lot of this article (possibly the majority?) is actually spent explaining why Instant Games haven't taken over the world, despite some success stories. This is why he goes into some detail on Apple - if they can't go on iOS devices, there's a real ceiling on the trend. I really enjoyed this article, but it's a bit of a discursive brain dump, which is why I think a lot of the criticisms have essentially been misrepresentations of the actual article contents.